As a child, you respond physically, tactically. You're delighted by sound, you're delighted by recognizing something. It's like hide and seek. Is it there? Is it not there? Is it this note? Is it not this note? It's one fantastic game.
Yo-Yo MaRead
As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody's individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of appreciating diverse forms of music and how they reflect life's complexities, encouraging openness to change.
Yo-Yo Ma's quote highlights the beauty and diversity found in individual expressions of music, each carrying its unique rhythm, language, and cultural significance. As we embrace this variety, we become more receptive to the changes in life and gain a deeper understanding of our surroundings, fostering adaptability and openness to new experiences.
Themes
MusicLifeDiversityHeritageOpennessAdaptability
In practice
Example use cases
During a TED Talk about cultural diversity, you can use the quote to illustrate the importance of understanding different backgrounds.
More from Yo-Yo Ma
All quotes →There's a part of me that's always charging ahead. I'm the curious kid, always going to the edge.
Yo-Yo MaRead
I think that peace is, in many ways, a precondition of joy.
Yo-Yo MaRead
I think anybody who goes away finds you appreciate home more when you return.
Yo-Yo MaRead
When we enlarge our view of the world, we deepen our understanding of our own lives.
Yo-Yo MaRead
I learn something not because I have to, but because I really want to. That's the same view I have for performing. I'm performing because I really want to, not because I have to bring bread back home.
Yo-Yo MaRead
Similar quotes
What music is better able to do than language is to represent the complexity of human emotional states.
Daniel LevitinRead
And the reason I am writing this on the back of a manila envelope now that they have left the train together is to tell you that when she turned to lift the large, delicate cello onto the overhead rack, I saw him looking up at her and what she was doing the way the eyes of saints are painted when they are looking up at God when he is doing something remarkable, something that identifies him as God.
Billy CollinsRead
Literature is born when something in life goes slightly adrift.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
I designed 'Buffy' to be an icon, to be an emotional experience, to be loved in a way that other shows can't be loved. Because it's about adolescence, which is the most important thing people go through in their development, becoming an adult.
Joss WhedonRead
The institutions of human society treat us as parts of a machine. They assign us ranks and place considerable pressure upon us to fulfill defined roles. We need something to help us restore our lost and distorted humanity. Each of us has feelings that have been suppressed and have built up inside. There is a voiceless cry resting in the depths of our souls, waiting for expression. Art gives the soul's feelings voice and form.
Daisaku IkedaRead
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking "Is there a meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes", And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that would be "No."
Aaron CoplandRead